HomeFront
by NotCras
Summary: Admiral Anderson sends a squad of his best and brightest to take out a power plant; part of a larger plan to strike back against the Reaper occupation in Chicago. But the reapers have some new cards up their tentacles, and Anderson's star squad is quickly thrown into a desperate fight for their lives.


**author's note**: This was a piece I did for a contest over on DA. The contest was to make up your own reaper forces, and as you can see I made two up, both terrifying in their own way. I honestly couldn't just write a description like they wanted, so I wrote a whole short story about them. I hope you enjoy it! If you like this short story, let me know and I will do more!

I will warn you all that this is a pretty brutal story. If your day was bad or you are feeling depressed, don't read this. Its bloody and violent and reflects more of the harsh realities of war (if you aren't on Shepard's squad that is).

* * *

**Homefront**

Admiral Anderson wiped the exhaustion from his eyes as he approached the briefing room of his little makeshift guerilla base. Anderson couldn't remember the last time he slept last, and he was thankful for that, because he couldn't remember what he was missing.  
The briefing room for this makeshift base was rather small and the squad that he had chosen for the mission took up a good portion of it. These soldiers that he had chosen were six of his best and brightest. It was only fitting that they should get such a high priority mission.

He came to the holographic map table and beckoned the soldiers over to it. With a few flicks he showed them their target: the Chicago power station. The building itself was a dome with a columned veranda around it to make it look nice. At the top of the dome was a smaller glass dome that let out the intense light that resulted from the power process. For security reasons the building had only one entrance.

"You are to plant bombs at the base of this facility and blow it up once you are a safe distance away." He ordered the soldiers.

"Civilian casualties?" Caesar, the leader of the squad ventured a question. He pointed to a building right next to the power station.

"Minimal. Chicago was sufficiently evacuated. Reaper casualties on the other hand..." Anderson flicked the map to a location next to the power station. Close by was a reaper destroyer.

"You want us to take out a reaper by blowing up the power station?!"

Anderson nodded. "Pretty please?"

* * *

They had been through a lot of shit, but with the reapers everything just got continually worse. Caesar stood in the shuttle and looked over his team. Every single one of them was N7, the best and brightest that humanity had to offer.

First there was Brainiac, the engineer of the squad. He was always constantly tinkering with little devices and other gadgets that he might cook up, always trying to make things easier for others. Caesar had fought with him countless times, and Brainiac was probably the most dependable person in battle that he had ever met… and the kindest.

Next to him was Zed, the squad sniper. Zed was a quiet fellow that tended to stick to himself. That didn't mean that he wasn't a team player, in fact he was quite the opposite; after working with him against the reapers, Caesar wanted no one else as his squad sniper. Zed sat in his chair and stared off into space, a customary pre-battle tradition of his. In the little that Caesar had talked to Zed, Zed had told him that this pre-battle tradition was him just thinking and prepping his mind. It made him able to focus on the shooting and less about the people he was shooting at, he had said.

Facing Zed was Boomer, a female soldier. As the shuttle flew, she constantly was checking her weapons, shifting her armor, or just fidgeting. Such nerves however did not show up in battle; Boomer was efficient and sometimes brutal to her enemies. To her friends she was extremely loyal and had a great sense of humor. It was ironic that the cool cat of the group was the one that showed her nerves the most before battle.

On the other side of the shuttle was the second soldier of the squad, Dillo. Dillo had grown up in the same town as Caesar had, but it was a few years after Caesar had left for training school. But that was about all that they had in common. In the reaper invasion Dillo had turned to drinking. Constantly the man drank before missions, but the quality of his fighting never decreased. In fact Caesar had begun to think that Dillo was a better soldier drunk than sober.

Finally there were the two biotic vanguards of the squad, fraternal twins Mage and Woosh. Both were extremely close. Mage, the male twin, had more control and power in his biotics, but his sister could outshoot him. Together on the battlefield they made a lethal pair. Caesar couldn't help but smile as brother and sister arm wrestled in the air. Despite their quality as soldiers, they were rather young. Caesar hated them to be exposed to such a terrible environment that the reapers have made for them, but he was glad that they were there to lend their biotics.

Caesar was confident that his squad could pull off the mission. Best case scenario was that they would get in undetected and blow the station without the reapers knowing what hit them. Worst case scenario was the same as every mission: death.

* * *

The shuttle touched down and Zed hurried out into the wrecked streets of Chicago. There was no fighting going on in this city, which gave it an eerie silence to it. Anderson was going to launch his guerilla offensive on this city once the squad had dealt with the reaper. No pressure.

Zed pulled out his sniper, a customized N7 Valiant with elongated barrel and thermal scope attachment, and looked down the scope. He was the eyes and ears for the squad, checking to make sure that no ambush was waiting for them. After a sufficient check to make sure that the shuttle had not been spotted, Zed gave Caesar a nod. The squad leader then signaled to the squad to get a move on.

Scans of the area done right before they arrived suggested that there was a forward reaper base in these parts. It was easily avoidable if they were just cautious about it. Uncertainty hung in the air, so thick that you could cut it with a knife. The streets were dead silent as well, and the silence suggested that something was up.

The shuttle was heard lifting off, and they knew now that there was no turning back.  
An explosion was heard and everyone stopped in their tracks. The sound of the shuttle was no longer heard. Everyone looked to each other. Was the shuttle destroyed? Panic was on everyone's faces. Screeches of reaper soldiers sounded afterwards.

"RUN!" It was no use trying to maintain their cover. The element of surprise was gone. Now they just needed to get to the power station and set off the bomb fast. The power station was simply two blocks down.

Soon the cannibals caught their scent and were right on their trail. Their groans and noises sounded frightening, as if they were animals on the hunt, certainly not something that you would expect from a highly advanced civilization. Shots were fired in the squad's general direction, but nothing came of them.

Just as the squad reached the steps of the entrance of the power station cannibals appeared en masse at their location.

Using the columns as cover, the squad engaged the enemy.

Zed held up the rear from the entrance and began getting off shots with his Valiant. Every shot struck true, felling the larger threats such as brutes. Behind one of the columns Boomer was holding back a constant stream of husks trying to overwhelm their position.

"Brainiac! I need you to get inside and set the bomb as fast as you can!" Caesar ordered the engineer from the other side of the door as Zed. "Dillo! Take that barrier and help defend the position! Mage and Woosh I will tell you to charge when we need to leave. Right now just hold them back." Caesar stepped out from behind cover to survey the situation.

Out of the corner of Zed's eye he saw Caesar's body take an impact and hit the ground.

"Caesar!" Woosh crouched and pulled Caesar's body back into cover. "Shit he's dead!"

Zed did not know the reapers were capable of such precision. He checked the reaper forces with his scope. Using his thermal vision he pinpointed a lone reaper soldier in a building. Going back into normal scope he saw a reaper soldier that he had never seen before. Large red eyes on a face that seemed to be drell's in a sniper's scope was searching for their next target. Zed realized that the next target would be him. Quickly he dove into cover, elated to see a thin red laser hit the ground where his head had been.

"They have a sniper, keep your heads down!" Zed yelled. Quickly he dove out of cover and concentrated his sniper on the spot where the drell had been, ready to take a shot. But the drell was gone. "And I lost him!"

"But you're our sniper!" Dillo yelled. "FUCKING FIND IT!"

"Shit, what do we do?" Woosh panicked, the dead body beside her. Her brother took a moment from shooting to comfort his sister. "Keep it together sis, we wait for our escape to turn on the heat like Caesar wanted us to." Mage put a comforting hand on his sister's shoulder. "We will get out alive."

"That doesn't mean that you can't lay covering fire!" Boomer shouted. "We need someone to check on Brainiac too. If he's down we are screwed."

"You go check on him Boomer, I'll stay with my sis and help out here." Mage took Boomer's spot, and Boomer ran into the facility.

"Where are you, you bastard?" Zed whispered under his breath as he searched for the drell's thermals. Rather quickly he found the drell's heat signature and locked on. Unfortunately he was forced to get back into cover as the drell fired another round from its beam sniper.

"Screw you." Zed activated his tactical cloak and went invisible. He stepped out of cover and trained his scope on the spot where the drell had been last. Using standard visuals he saw nothing, but switching to thermal visuals revealed the drell in the same spot. "Lookie here, it seems we got a chameleon here." He smiled and fired the shot. In thermals he saw the drell take the bullet impact and fall over. It did not get up. In the standard scope he saw the drell's cloak dissipate, revealing a grotesque combination of felsh and metal. Red light glowed from its torso because of the reaper tech inside it. From the looks of it there was not that much armor either. That did not make reduce their lethality. "Sniper is down!" Zed advised.

Boomer came back from inside the bowels of the power station. "Brainiac is almost done. We need to hold out for a little longer."

More screeching was heard, and there was a movement far back in the enemy lines. Zed tried to see what it was, but the things were moving too fast to be cannibals or husks. He sighed. Something worse was coming their way. "We got something coming up."

"We need more info than that Zed." Dillo answered frankly. He fired a concussive shot that took out an incoming brute.

"It's moving too fast for me to get a good glimpse of it. All I know that it's something bad."

"Shit."

Boomer also had a sniper and she checked her scope at the new arrivals. It was a few moments before her face reflected what she saw. "Fuck, are those vorcha?" She looked out of her sniper in disbelief. "Fuck!"

Zed quickly checked his scope again. What he saw definitely had been a vorcha sometime in its life. Large teeth no longer able to be contained in its mouth were the main centerpiece on the face, with small beady read eyes as compliment. The body seemed strong and durable; the small frame of the vorcha had been reinforced with reaper metal and tech. Small tubes protruded from its left chest and connected somewhere on its back. At the end of its arms were gigantic claws, colored a dark black. Its feet had a similar touch, with gigantic talons that dug into the ground with each step. They helped propel this vorcha abomination to new speeds over land as they flew to the front lines.

"Fuck is right." Zed confirmed.

"Everyone dig in then." Dillo ordered. "Mage and Woosh, I need you guys ready to charge at any moment.

"No, we need to hold back until we need to escape." Mage did not charge up his biotics. "We should stick with Caesar's plan."

"CAESAR IS DEAD!" Dillo yelled.

"Then what makes you in charge?" Mage shot back.

"The fact that if you don't charge into that group of vorcha-things when they get here we will all die!"

Zed quickly shook that thought from his head before it develop any further. Usually his contemplations before the battle were enough to keep his doubts to a minimum, but how could one prepare for their supposed death?

"Fuck!" Mage exclaimed. It seemed that Dillo's reasoning had gotten to him. He nudged Woosh. "Get ready to wreck those things." She nodded and both surrounded themselves in biotic flare, ready to charge.

Zed took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. His nerves were momentarily calmed and he looked back to the situation. The vorcha were close enough to snipe. Zed led the shot a little and fired. A vorcha fell instantly with a shot to its head. Zed ejected a thermal clip and checked again.

But the vorcha were too close now.

* * *

Setting bombs was stressful and a lot of work. First one had to find the perfect spot for the bomb, and then one had to set it. But that was the easy part. In order to make the most lethal explosion, one also had to mess with the settings in the power station. The hack was complex and it took forever to get the right settings.

Brainiac finalized the bomb and headed back to the entrance. Strange screeching was heard from the entrance, and from the shouting of his squad mates he knew that something was wrong.

"Oh my god! What is that one doing?"

"It's just taken the plating from that brute and grafted onto itself!"

"Don't shoot the torso or arms, it'll just grow back! Aim for the head!"

"IM TRYING! They're just so fast!"

Brainiac came to find Caesar's dead body against a column, and reaperized vorcha engaged in battle with the squad outside. Mage and Woosh both charged to and fro into vorcha in close quarters. The vorcha were fragile; every shot knocked off a limb or left a gaping hole. But the vorcha merely replaced the arms with other vorcha arms, or even arms from other reaperized troops. Several vorcha engaged the squad in cover with cannibal arms. Holes were also patched with flesh torn from corpses. "The bomb is all set! Let's get out of here!"

Some vorcha rushed the stairs at Brainiac and Boomer tackled the feral beast. It fought back with its razor claws and bit Boomer in the side, but she was able to blow its head off with her shotgun.

"What are these things?" Brainiac applied some medigel when he got to Boomer, but the meager amount he had wasn't enough.

"There's a change in plans. We are now officially going to get screwed. That's all that matters with these things."

"Don't talk like that! We are going to get out of this!"

"Don't you get it?" Boomer grabbed Brainiac by the collar. "If we leave, they are going to deactivate the bomb. We can't let that happen."

"Fuck." Brainiac took a step back as he took in what she said. "No… we have to make it back. Anderson needs us."

"He needs us to take out that reaper, that's what he needs."

Suddenly there were human screams that joined in chorus with the vorcha screams. Both looked over to see Mage and Woosh literally torn apart by the vorcha. There were just too many of them, and the two had been quickly overwhelmed.

The surviving members watched in horror as the vorcha fought over the scraps, eating the twin's flesh and using it to gaft new skin where bullets had wounded them.

"Shit shit shit." Boomer turned away. No one could really watch what unfolded. "That's what's going to happen to us isn't it?"

"What if we had one soldier hold back and the others leave to fight another day? Anderson needs to hear about these vorcha."

"And how are we going to decide that?" Zed interjected. The vorcha had begun to fight over the scraps, forgetting about the living soldiers still in cover. At least Mage and Woosh had given them some time.

"We draw straws."

Everyone nodded. It was the only real way that they could do it while staying fair. Straws were made from pieces of wire that Brainiac had. It was extremely tense moment as everyone took one and compared straws.

Dillo was the one that fate chose.

"No, no, no no no nonono." He backed away from the others in disbelief. "Boomer, you're wounded, you should stay." He shook his head, arguing with himself in his head. "No no no nononono... Shit. Fuck. Shit." He punched the wall. "Go! Just go now then! Before I change my mind." Tears began to form in his eyes. "It was a fucking honor being with you guys."  
Brainiac extended his arm to shake Dillo's, but Dillo pushed it away. "No! Just GO! NOW!" The little scuffle over the remains seemed to be dying down. He ejected a thermal clip went against one of the columns. "Just blow that thing as soon as possible... I don't want to be like them."

Zed helped Boomer move while Brainiac covered their escape. Soon they could hear Dillo's screams, half from the pain and half from courage. As they got farther and farther away they could still hear Dillo's screams as the vorcha probably swarmed him and tore him limb from limb. The screams only motivated them to move faster.

The exfiltration point has not been compromised and another shuttle was waiting for them. Silently they got in and they told the pilot to take off. As the shuttle took off they heard the buzzing of the reaper destroyer. Obviously it must have come to investigate the disturbance that the squad had made.

Zed and Boomer watched Brainiac hold the detonator in his hands.

"Fuck this. Fuck the reapers." He stated. He activated the trigger and a large explosion was heard, followed by a larger explosion. The reaper gave a satisfying cry as it was hit from the devastating blast.

The shuttle ride was silent the rest of the way. Who could talk after what had happened?


End file.
